


The Art of Epically Backfiring Spellcasting

by evlytheevilqueen



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, also there is minor character death, apart from the general idea of sharks in a tornado, but it's not graphically depicted, but not really, my apologies, that somehow turned mushy at the end, this is sort of a crossover with Sharknado, why am I not surprised that my first fic in this fandom is utter crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evlytheevilqueen/pseuds/evlytheevilqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Accidentally creating a Sharknado with several backfiring spells sounds ridiculous and impossible, right? Burning sharks raining down from the sky - really unrealistic, you'd say? But then again, werewolves are real and so are freaky dark druids and lizard boys and people coming back from the dead - Stiles can't say he's really surprised, at this point. And of course Derek and Cora had to return to Beacon Hills with the worst possible timing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Epically Backfiring Spellcasting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shiruy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiruy/gifts).



> I'm deeply sorry. No, really. I'm not sure I can recall just exactly /how/ it came down to this. I apologize and I hope someone will find this hilarious. This is not how I planned my first fic for the Teen Wolf fandom to end up.  
> (Lea, this is at least partially your fault and I'm not really sorry. Maybe a little bit)

It all started out on a fairly ordinary morning. The weather was mild, the birds were singing, for once there was no Big Bad Monster of the Week. Maybe that should have been a sign that something was bound to go deeply wrong, but everyone was too busy taking a relieved breath in between crises to notice.

 

Another sign should have been that they were going to try the spell in the drained swimming pool in Beacon Hills High. Nothing good ever seemed to go down at that school, but they'd been in need of a lot of confined space and it was summer break, so no one would be around to interrupt them. No one particularly wanted to hang out at a pool that had had to be drained after last week's Creepy Creature of the Night had dropped its prey through the roof when Allison's arrow had hit it, thus leaving not only a dog carcass but also a whole lot of glass in the water.

 

So that's where Lydia and Stiles were headed to try out that ancient spell Lydia had stumbled across while helping Stiles out with his research. She had complained about having better things to do almost the whole time they had been working, but Stiles had caught the glint in her eyes at being asked for help because she was the only one who could do it. If it made Lydia feel better about being one of the few squishies in the big supernatural shitstorm that had become their lives, well, Stiles hadn't actually planned on learning archaic Latin, anyway.

 

If you asked Stiles, he definitely wasn't to blame for that spell going as horribly wrong as it had. Why would he anticipate anyone messing around with his ingredients? And you really couldn't expect him to examine the werewolf canine they had to use – courtesy of one of the betas of the latest rival pack with an eye on Beacon Hills that had been drawn here by the Nemeton, though not really a deliberate offer – too closely for long. At least not long enough to notice all the differences that would have told him he was putting down a shark tooth in the middle of the circle of runes he was kneeling in instead. And at first, everything went swimmingly – they only noticed something had gone wrong when all of the sudden, the room was filled with sharks flapping helplessly on the floor, gasping for air that wouldn't come.

 

"Sharks," Lydia had said, her voice completely flat. "Why are there sharks everywhere?"

 

"I don't know!" Stiles had to jump out of the relative safety the circle provided to avoid being hit in the face by an astray fin. "It said nothing about sharks in the book, did it?" He threw her a desperate look, trying not to accidentally step on one of the poor, suffering animals.

 

"Are you doubting my translation?" Lydia raised an eyebrow, elegantly side-stepping a shark rolling over in her direction. "Need I remind you that so far, I'm the only one with a track record of actually getting anything right when it comes to archaic spell books?"

 

She was giving him a patented Lydia Martin-glare and Stiles swallowed down his retort that they didn't really have anyone else at hand who could even read those, anyway – he cherished life too much to die a sixteen-year-old virgin. And with all the members of the United Club for Supernatural Jerks they were facing on an at least weekly basis, being stabbed to death with one of Lydia's stilettos was really not the most heroic way to go.

 

"Of course not! But what went wrong? We tried to banish a pack of wolves from here, how did that even result in a bunch of sharks in a dry swimming pool?"

 

Lydia pursed her lips in thought, zigzagging between the flopping sharks with a grace that really didn't match the background scenery. She walked right past Stiles and crouched down in the center of the circle, picking up the tooth with only the slightest hint of hesitancy and holding it against the light, eyes narrowed as she analyzed it.

 

"Well, maybe it's because the spell necessitated a werewolf tooth and this is definitely the tooth of a shark. My best guess is that if you try to focus the spell on something that is not actually anywhere in the vicinity, it will summon instead of banish."

 

Stiles groaned, rolling his eyes. "Great, now we not only still have the other pack breathing down our neck, we also have to get rid of a bunch of sharks."

 

"I'm not the one who messed up the spell," Lydia said, voice cutting. She carelessly dropped the tooth and tossed her hair back a little as she rose back to her feet. If Stiles was used to condescending, haughty glares from anyone, then it was definitely her – that didn't mean it didn't make him squirm and shift on his feet when she directed one at him.

 

"I don't even know how the shark tooth got in there! It's not like I'm having piles of teeth of all kinds of creatures of the night and then someon a shelf at home. I'm not even sure _Deaton_ would have shark teeth stocked. Though I'm not taking bets on that."

 

They both looked back to the relatively innocent-looking tooth. While his attention was focused somewhere else, Stiles got his legs pulled out from under him by the sweep of a fin. He hadn't even noticed how close the shark had come during their exchange. He couldn't really afford to be this unperceptive, even though magic always drained him of all energy and made it difficult for his scrambled thoughts to get back into order.

 

Lydia just rolled her eyes at him, arms crossed in front of her chest as she watched him flail away from the shark. "Clearly, someone was trying to sabotage us. I'd suggest that before we try to figure out who and why, we get rid of those sharks first." She gestured at the flopping mess of sea creatures around them. The noise of their wet fins hitting the floors was really starting to grate on Stiles' nerves.

 

"Brilliant idea, my strawberry blond goddess, getting right on that. From over there." He gestured toward the other end of the room – where there were thankfully much less sharks covering the ground – before somewhat inefficiently stumbling his way through the mess, remembering last minute to safe his spell books and backpack from flopping, wet fins or irritated, sharp teeth. Lydia huffed and stalked past him, still looking more like a model strutting down a runway rather than someone making their way through the sharp-toothed aftermath of a spell gone wrong.

 

It took them almost an hour to find a vanishing spell that might work and would hopefully deposit the sharks back in the sea where they came from. Stiles threw the closest still enthusiastically flopping shark an exasperated look. "Why are they even still alive? As far as I'm aware, sharks shouldn't be able to survive over an hour on land. Especially not without any water nearby."

 

"Would you rather deal with a room full of slowly rotting shark carcasses? Small blessings, Stilinski."

 

"I guess," Stiles said with a sigh, throwing a dented Lacrosse ball he'd found at the bottom of his backpack for some reason at the closest shark out of sheer boredom. It caught the ball between its teeth, its dark eyes looking disturbingly expectant as they turned on him, like a puppy wanting to play fetch.

 

"No way in hell," said Stiles under his breath, shaking his head to get rid of the thought. The situation was crazy enough as it was, no need for his imagination to make it even more screwed up. He'd swear there was a sad look in the shark's eyes as it turned its head back to stare blankly at the floor again, slowly chewing on the ball. Its tail fin definitely drooped, though. Stiles blinked and told himself very firmly that sharks were not dogs and trying to get the tiny plastic ball out of that giant mouth covered in razor-sharp, long teeth would probably just result in the loss of several fingers, at best.

 

Thankfully, Lydia was too busy looking up the details of the spell to pay attention to Stiles' momentary mental breakdown and by the time she finally looked up from the book in her hands, he had caught himself enough to put on a somewhat professional face. They got up and weaved through the sharks, back to where the circle for the original banishing spell was still mostly intact. They had to push one of the sharks a little to the left but it was surprisingly compliant and didn't even try to bite them. Stiles would marvel at that later, when he wasn't so busy being flooded by relief. Maybe he was secretly a shark whisperer? That would definitely be awesome, if somewhat useless unless he moved to a beach in Australia.

 

Stiles made himself comfortable in the middle of the circle, Lydia close by but just outside of the lines in case this spell, too, should backfire on them. Usually the space directly around the spell caster provided a bit of shelter against the side effects of magic, as according to their past experience it would seem that the caster was to some degree immune to their own magic. Stiles took a deep breath, gripping the book Lydia handed him tightly enough for his knuckles to turn white. "Ready?"

 

Lydia just nodded, lips pressed together in a tight, determined line and Stiles started to recite the spell. It went off without a hitch until suddenly, someone stepped into the circle with him, pressed way too close for comfort and literally breathing down his neck. Stiles jumped and stuttered on a syllable, accidentally messing up one of the chalk lines with his foot when he tried to flail away from the intruder. The room went eerily silent for a moment as the sharks froze mid-motion as if someone had just switched off the flow of time – and then all hell proceeded to break loose.

 

One moment they were standing in an empty pool in a hall covered in flopping, miraculously still-alive sharks and the next there was a tornado around them, glass raining down and being immediately swiped up where it pierced what was left of the roof. Pure instinct had Stiles reaching back to drag Lydia close to his side so they could both profit from what protection the circle would grant them. He didn't even look back, too fascinated with what he'd just accidentally created, staring on in awe, limbs frozen in place. He suppressed a surge of hysterical laughter when a shark flew past him, whirled around on the wind as if it weighed nothing, a miserable look in its eyes, as much as sharks could have expressions.

 

"I created a Sharknado." The words tasted weird on his tongue and they sounded about as ridiculous and impossible said out loud as they did in his head, but it had been worth a shot. Stiles had hoped someone would declare him insane and/or contradict him, but Lydia just followed the next shark whirling past them with wide eyes so he probably wasn't hallucinating.

 

A hand landed heavily on his shoulder and the presence at his back he'd almost forgotten about leaned in even closer. "Well done, Stiles. I must say, I've never been more proud of you." Peter's mouth was so close to Stiles' ear his breath tickled the sensitive skin there, sending a violent shudder down Stiles' spine as he clenched his hands into fists, the book landing uselessly at his feet, the hair on the back of his neck rising.

 

Before Stiles could pull back his elbow and hope Peter was too close to get away from him before he could land a nice hit, however ineffective it might be, one of the sharks shot out of the tornado and in their direction. Stiles saw his life flash by in front of his eyes for a second before its giant jaws closed around Peter's shoulder and dragged him with it as its own momentum flung it back into the wind. He could hear Peter's scream and the sickening crunch of bones over the roaring of the tornado. His eyes turned to Lydia and she blinked at him.

 

"Disconcerting as that may be, it's also rather handy," she said after a moment, shrugging it off and turning her attention back to the tornado around them. "Also oddly fitting, considering what we're standing in the middle of."

 

At this point, Stiles wouldn't even be surprised any more if she'd actually watched Sharknado. There was no knowing what kind of knowledge, trivial or specialized, Lydia Martin possessed at any given time.

 

"Probably." Stiles decided to leave the image of Peter being dragged into a tornado by a shark sinking its teeth into his shoulder for one of his plentiful nightmares. He merrily ignored the splashes of blood on his shirt in favor of figuring out how to get them away from here and preferably also end this whole bizarre situation. He followed Lydia's gaze with his eyes and promptly wished he hadn't. "Please tell me the Sharknado hasn't moved closer to us and I'm just seeing things."

 

"It's definitely coming closer," Lydia said flatly, not taking her eyes off of the mixture of ripped-out tiles and sharks whirling in circles a mere foot away from them now.

 

"Do we have a plan?" Stiles would deny to his actual dying day that his voice took on a pitch he hadn't been able to reach since he'd been ten.

 

"Close your eyes!" Lydia yelled back over the now really deafening roar of the wind, pulling him against her, arms around his waist and face hidden in his shoulder. He'd enjoy this position much more if they weren't about to die and the reason Lydia was hugging him so tightly weren't to minimize the surface the wind could attack. Still, he hugged back, burying his head in her hair and doing as she'd told him. He could feel the tornado moving closer, its force tugging violently at his clothes and hair and whipping against his skin and he tried to prepare himself for getting sucked up and thrown through the air before he'd break his neck or have it end some other conceivable way – when suddenly, the pull was just gone, his clothes and hair falling back down limply. Not letting go of each other just yet, Lydia and Stiles looked up to see that the tornado had moved past them and was now approaching the wall behind them.

 

"It just moved past us," Lydia said incredulously, blinking and slowly untangling herself from Stiles. "How?"

 

Stiles was about to shrug when his eyes drifted to the still stark white lines of the circle they were standing in. "Well, I guess I created that Sharknado, so the caster immunity still applies?"

 

"Logical enough." Lydia blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, giving it a look that was equal measures irritated and resigned. She looked a bit like that night she'd walked out of the woods after she'd escaped from the hospital, though decidedly more clothed.

 

Stiles was about to say something when the Sharknado unceremoniously tore through the wall it had approached, the sound of crumbling stone and creaking metal drowning out everything else. He and Lydia watched wide-eyed as sharks were thrown against the remains of the wall with an ugly crunching noise and fell down to the ground motionlessly, rubble and dust raining down around them as the tornado left a path of destruction behind it.

 

Once the wall was no longer an obstacle – the rest of the building miraculously still standing and not coming down on their heads – it made its way toward the center of Beacon Hills.

 

"Oh fuck." Stiles felt his hands begin to shake, a panic attack waiting to set in stealing his breath. He forced it down by sheer force of will, trying to still his hands by balling them into fists and taking deliberate, deep inhales.

 

"We need to stop this, or at least redirect it for now. But first, we need to evacuate the town," Lydia said, her tone final and her expression one of fierce determination as she pressed her phone into Stiles' hand. His own had been in his backpack and he thought he'd seen a flash of one of the straps peek out from between the crushed ribs of a shark carcass. Yeah, so not looking too closely at that. With still shaking hands, he typed in the number of the sheriff department and prayed that his dad wouldn't kill him and actually could get all those people out of the way before anyone came to harm thanks to his failure.

 

###

 

Stiles had somehow gotten away with the promise of being grounded for just the next thirty years before his father had hung up, cursing wildly under his breath and already with one foot out the door, shouting orders at his deputies. He and Lydia had just sat down to go back to pouring over their books in an attempt to find a solution to this, deciding the swimming pool was just as good a strategic base as any other place they could come up with – probably even better than most if they should need chemicals for some reason due to its proximity to the labs – when Scott called Lydia. She pushed her phone into Stiles' hand without a word or even glancing up from the indecipherable text she was concentrating on. Stiles rolled his eyes at her and held the phone to his ear. "Hey, Scott."

 

"Are you okay? Why didn't you answer your phone? I called a million times!"

 

"Sorry, it's sort of... destroyed. Long story. What is it?"

 

"Dude, did you notice there's an _actual Sharknado_ in town?"

 

"It's kind of hard to miss, Scott." Sometimes, Stiles wanted to cry tears of desperation that this guy was the current 'true' Alpha of Beacon Hills.

 

"Yeah, right. Do we have a plan?" Stiles' lips quirked up for a moment. No amount of claws and superhuman strength would get them out of this one, it was all on the magical brains of the operation now. Considering the circumstances he probably really shouldn't preen right now, but hey, it was nice to be needed and a basic part of the plan for a change, even if the whole thing was his own fault.

 

"Not yet, Lydia and I are working on it."

 

"Good." A moment of silence. "Do you think Allison is okay?"

 

Stiles rolled his eyes so hard it gave him a temporary headache. " _Yes_ , Scott. I'm pretty sure the only consequences sharks raining down on Allison and her dad would have would be a generous helping of sushi at the Argents for the next week."

 

"Right." Scott took a deep breath. "I'd offer to look after your dad but my mom refuses to leave the hospital since it doesn't seem to be in the path of the Sharknado so far..."

 

"I get it, Scott, don't worry. I may not be able to rely on Dad looking after himself when it comes to his cholesterol, but I trust him to get out of this without getting hurt. Either way, there's not much you could do, right?"

 

"Probably not." Scott sighed. "Still, it doesn't feel right, not being around to make sure he doesn't get hit by a shark while he tries to save a trapped puppy or something. Would it be okay if I asked Isaac if he could keep an eye on him?"

 

It were moments of deep gratitude like this that reminded Stiles why he was best friends with Scott every time he pulled a shitty move. "That would be great, bro."

 

"Consider it done," Scott said, and Stiles could practically hear the silly salute he was most definitely doing on the other end of the line. They hung up with a promise to call each other if anything should happen and Stiles went back to work, feeling much lighter now that he knew someone was making sure his dad didn't do anything reckless. He was well aware where he got that particular character trait from. Lydia lightly rested a hand on his shoulder for a few moments and offered him a small, reassuring smile before she returned to her book.

 

Thirty minutes later, she closed it with a heavy sigh. "This is all useless. I thought about trying the banishing spell again, but we can't risk that thing just showing up somewhere else and besides, I really don't want to know what happens when you try to banish what is basically just moving air."

 

"But how do we stop it, then? Do you think we can just reverse the spell?"

 

"Maybe." She shrugged. "But I wouldn't bet on it and we don't have the time to research reversal spells, anyway." Her smile turned reckless and dangerous.

 

Stiles pulled a face and put down his own book with a resigned sigh of his own. "Okay, out with it. What is your devious plan, Miss Martin?"

 

"Well, if I recall correctly, they tried to drop a bomb in the tornado in the movie. Not a very logical or intelligent move, but I figure maybe if we tried to fling a little _magic_ explosive into it... worst case scenario, we have a burning shark carcass or two, best case, it acts as a reversal or at least stops it."

 

"This sounds so unlikely it might be genius," Stiles said, raising his eyebrow. They practically jumped to their feet in their haste to get to the lab to mix one of Lydia's patented Molotov cocktails. Thank God that Stiles always kept a bit of mountain ash in his pocket these days. They were back down in the parking lot and in the jeep in record time, speeding after the Sharknado and doing their best to ignore the eerily empty streets and the houses with torn-off roofs or partially caved-in walls.

 

When they caught up there was thankfully no one around to witness their last-ditch attempt. Taking a deep breath, they climbed out of the car as fast as their human speed allowed them to and as soon as he had a somewhat secure stand, Stiles flung the bottle past a shark toward the concrete in the eye of the storm, desperately believing that it would hit its aim instead of just getting picked up by the wind and flying through town. The mountain ash seemed to be doing its job because there was the clearly audible noise of breaking glass and something that might have been a muffled explosion and then there was another ominous silence.

 

For an instant, it looked like it hadn't worked. The panic coiling in Stiles' stomach didn't even have time to properly push bile up his throat before the tornado just... stopped.

 

Which would have been great if it hadn't proceeded to rain burning sharks from the sky at about the same time.

 

Stiles and Lydia dove back into the jeep, arms over their heads and crouching low as a series of awful wet splashing and crunching noises announced the sharks' sudden descent back down to earth. One ended up demolishing the hood of Stiles' jeep beyond recognition.

 

When the noises ceased they carefully looked out through the windows, breathing a sigh of relief when it seemed like the shark-rain had stopped. They waited another moment before they got out of the car to further inspect the damage. They hadn't even gotten within touching distance of the closest shark – Stiles already bemoaning the fate of his poor car – when the Sheriff's cruiser pulled up a little further down the street, Stiles' dad jumping out almost before the engine had even stopped.

 

"Stiles! What are you doing here?! Are you insane?"

 

"We were just trying to stop the Sharknado!"

 

"Well, at least there's no tornado anymore," Isaac said as he trudged along right behind the Sheriff, crunching up his nose as he carefully tapped one of the still burning sharks with his foot. The fire didn't seem to damage either his shoes or the shark carcass, and wasn't that a whole other problem.

 

The Sheriff just shook his head and pulled his son into a hug as soon as he was close enough. "If you think this will somehow lessen the time you'll be grounded for as soon as this is over, you're sorely mistaken."

 

"Wouldn't dream of it." Stiles laughed a touch hysterically. They all turned to look at the aftermath of their Sharknado-rescue mission.

 

"What are we going to do with all these sharks on magical fire? We can hardly just leave them here."

 

They just stared around them in silence for a while, trying to come up with a solution.

 

"Deaton has the worst timing for his vacations." Stiles sighed, poking the shark still lying on his hood and jumping back into his dad when it twitched weakly. They all jumped a bit when Isaac suddenly snapped his fingers, the sound echoing quite loudly in the empty, silent streets, an almost maniac grin on his face.

 

"I think I know what to do with them!"

 

###

 

Stiles was definitely not going to ask where Isaac had gotten a tow truck and a snowplow from. Or why he knew how to drive them. Which was for once as easily said as done because his brain was too busy trying to process the mental image of his dad and Isaac respectively dragging and pushing magically burning shark carcasses through Beacon Hills and the woods up to the Hale house. For the first time since they'd left, Stiles was genuinely grateful that Cora and Derek weren't there because they'd probably rip their heads off for stashing them in their house, temporary though it might be.

 

Lydia was shifting nervously on her feet next to him. His best guess was that the very same thought had just crossed her mind. "We should probably head back home and try to find out how to get rid of the sharks. Or at least how to stop them from burning. We're not really of much use here."

 

"Probably not," Stiles said with a sigh, gingerly picking up his recovered backpack by a strap, trying very hard not to think about the things it was currently covered in. At least most of the damage was superficial, his wallet thankfully hadn't been doused in blood. Which was pretty much the only thing that had been in contact with the backpack that he'd actually keep. "Gotta get a head start on my forty years of being grounded, anyway."

 

"Forty if I'm feeling generous!" the Sheriff called from where he was rolling a burning shark up the stairs of the front porch. Once he arrived at the top, he walked around it and grabbed it by its tail fin, slowly dragging it inside. "Which I'm definitely not right now, just so you know," he added as he disappeared into the house, the torso of the shark barely fitting through the door.

 

Stiles sighed and climbed into the driver's seat of the cruiser. His dad would catch a ride with Scott, who'd promised to help drag the sharks into the house once he'd checked up on Allison and her dad, and Isaac had promised to get Stiles' baby into the closest garage for him. Apart from figuring out how to stop these sharks from being on magical fire so they could set them on actual fire and be rid of them (they'd already tried just setting them on 'normal' fire anyway and apart from rainbow colored sparks spewing out of that particular shark now, nothing had happened) there was not much left to do. So he dropped off Lydia and drove straight back home, starting to cover every available surface in the spell books he'd borrowed from Deaton as soon as he came into his room, his trusty laptop at his side, trying to find a solution and hoping it wouldn't fail as epically as everything else they had tried today. Maybe it would be better to get a good night's sleep and try again tomorrow, because today definitely wasn't their lucky day. If you didn't count the fact that Peter had been eaten by a shark. No one would care if the burning sharks spent 24 hours more or less in the abandoned Hale house, right? He'd just rest his eyes for a minute and get right back to work...

 

###

 

"Are you sure it was a good idea to come back already?" Cora asked, throwing Derek a skeptical look from the passenger side. "It might have done you good to get a little more distance from this town."

 

"And leave those idiot kids to fend for themselves? We're lucky if the town still stands as it is." Derek huffed, a small grin tugging at his lips. The last few weeks away from Beacon Hills and all the ghosts and painful memories clinging to it had really improved his mood. But he'd somehow found himself missing it after the first few days of pure relief, too, to his own surprise. He hadn't been sure if they'd leave for good or if they'd return when they'd left, but something about the town was calling him back. Maybe it was that he'd grown up here – it wasn't all bad memories. Maybe it was said idiot kids, most of whom he felt responsible for even though Isaac was the only one still alive that he'd actually turned. If he was being painfully honest with himself, which he tried to avoid most of the time, a lot of it was the gangly idiot with the huge brain and even bigger mouth that was loyal to a fault and reckless and loved so fiercely once you gained his affection. Granted, Derek also still frequently felt the need to smash his forehead against another steering wheel but it occurred less often and never with any actual intention of putting it into practice any more.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Derek caught Cora's knowing smirk and the stifling odor of smugness in the car would have been almost unbearable if it hadn't been disrupted by the just as oppressive smell of longing and, most embarrassingly, _pining_ coming from himself, underlined by his slightly erratic heartbeat at the thought of seeing Stiles again after so long apart. Which shouldn't be happening in the first place, and Cora definitely shouldn't be so gleeful about it. The boy was sixteen, for goodness' sake. Almost seventeen (not that Derek was counting down the days or had the occasion marked in his mental calendar), but still. It made him feel a bit like a pedophile if he thought about it really hard.

 

Derek was about to tell her off when a sharp inhale from Cora made him swallow his words and turn his head faster than any ordinary human could without breaking their neck to follow her line of sight. He almost crashed into the car in front of him despite his heightened reflexes when he slammed on the brakes, his joking words from earlier suddenly leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

 

They were a little beyond the center of the town and the better part of the street was a wreck. There were houses lacking whole outer walls, or a roof, some even a roof and the whole floor beneath it. Rubble was strewn everywhere and there were helpers trying to clear the street, climbing over it in protective clothing to get out what could still be salvaged. As they looked further down the street they could follow the path of destruction through to the high school with their eyes.

 

"Why am I not surprised it started there," Cora said dryly, swallowing hard as she kept her eyes on the almost-crumbling building that had housed their favorite café, the one they'd always gotten something or other from whenever they'd had planning sessions or just a bit of leisure time in between catastrophes for a change.

 

"We should check on the house," Derek said once he'd finally swallowed past the lump in his own throat, trying not to think about all the people still living here he cared about that could have gotten hurt or died in this. And he wouldn't even know because he was so good at pretending not to and they were forgetful teenagers and Derek was anything but sure that Scott would tell him if anything happened to Stiles...

 

"He's okay, Derek." Cora's voice was softer now, low and soothing as she put a reassuring hand on his tense arm and squeezed lightly. "He has to be. It takes more than a little storm to get rid of Stiles Stilinski."

 

Derek snorted but relaxed a little in his seat. "We both know that this wasn't just a random storm. Not in Beacon Hills."

 

Cora sighed. "Yeah, probably not. But it seems taken care of for now." They looked at each other and without another word, Derek made a turn and followed the familiar streets back to their former family home. They'd left the damage behind them long before they even reached the woods and most of the remaining tension in the car dissipated when there were no signs of a storm passing through the trees. Cora turned on the radio and it seemed that there had been no severe injuries and no casualties as the Sheriff's department had evacuated the affected areas swiftly, though no one was able to explain where the tornado had suddenly come from.

 

Once they'd arrived at the house, everything seemed normal enough. For a moment, Derek considered not getting out of the car and just turning around and driving back into town to check up on everyone and maybe get a motel room or something, but then again they could always do that after they'd made sure. He knew it had been the right decision the second he opened the car door and was hit by a mix of familiar scents, the smell of magic everywhere and, inexplicably, something marine he couldn't quite put his finger on. He could think of no good scenario that involved Isaac, Stiles, Lydia, Scott and the Sheriff being at his house, especially not if this much magic was involved.

 

He and Cora approached the door carefully, claws out and eyes flashing in case a hostile presence of some sort was still lurking around. Derek liked to think of himself as prepared for literally anything at this point, but he definitely didn't expect to walk into his former living room and find it stacked with dead sharks. _Burning_ dead sharks. Granted, this particular kind of fire smelled heavily of magic and didn't seem to harm even the sharks it should have fed on – and he was fairly certain the one in the left corner next to the fireplace was spewing rainbow sparks – but that didn't stop him from flinching and stumbling a step backward before catching himself. Cora just froze in the doorway and Derek _definitely_ never, ever wanted to see that particular expression on her face again. Switching from shock and surprised horror to protective fury so fast he felt a little dizzy, Derek whipped his phone out and was calling Stiles before he'd even made a conscious decision to do so.

 

It rang for a long time before Stiles answered and his "huh?" sounded very drowsy when he finally did. Derek checked his clock and frowned when it showed him that it was barely past five in the afternoon. One look at the burning stack of sharks to his right and Cora's face still frozen in that horrible expression was all it took to eradicate all traces of worry he might have felt toward Stiles right then, though.

 

"Stiles," he said, almost more growl than word. "Why are there dead, burning sharks stacked in my living room and why does the whole place reek of magic?"

 

He could tell when his words really registered and Stiles woke up fully by the change in his breathing and heartbeat, and the fact that both sounded fairly normal probably shouldn't have made him feel as relieved as it did, considering the circumstances. "Does that mean you're back?!" Derek didn't deem the statement worthy of a response since it was sort of obvious. But there was no denying that the excitement in Stiles' voice sent something warm and calming sliding down his back and curling up around his heart. Which was unfortunate, as nice as it felt, because he didn't want to be warm and calm right now.

 

"Duh, of course, sorry, dude. Not really back to the waking world just yet. Why do you immediately assume that I have anything to do with the burning sharks in your house?"

 

"Stiles."

 

Stiles heaved a deep sigh. "Okay, it's kind of a long story. To sum it up, Lydia and I were trying to ban a rival pack from Beacon Hills but someone exchanged the wolf tooth from one of their betas for a shark tooth and since there were no sharks to be banished, the spell reversed itself and suddenly there were a lot of sharks. So we tried to vanish them back where they came from, but Peter showed up out of nowhere, basically jumped in the circle with me and scared the living crap out of me and I messed up the spell and suddenly there was a tornado and the sharks were in it and Peter got eaten by one and yeah. The tornado left us alone because the spell caster is always immune but it sauntered off toward Beacon Hills so I had Dad evacuate everyone and Lydia and I figured out that maybe if we just threw a magic Molotov cocktail into the thing the explosion could maybe make it stop and hey, it worked! There's no tornado anymore. Only problem is that now there are a lot of sharks on magical fire and we had to put them somewhere were no one would find them until we can figure out how to make it stop. We didn't really expect you back so soon." The deep sigh had probably been a good thing because most of that explanation came out on one breath. Derek only understood most of what had been said because he had a lot of experience in deciphering guiltily rambling Stiles.

 

"You do realize that that sounds incredibly insane, right? Even by our extended standards," Derek said, rubbing his forehead and wishing he could still be angry. The problem was that he sort of saw their point. Still, he could have lived without Cora having to see that.

 

"Yup. But you can hardly deny it, dude, there are burning sharks in your living room, after all. Sorry for that, by the way."

 

"Well, you had to put them somewhere. That doesn't mean I have to like it," Derek grumbled.

 

"Do you and Cora want to stay here? I mean, it's totally cool if you already have a motel or something but I thought maybe you wouldn't want to stay at the loft and-"

 

"Thank you, Stiles," Derek cut him off, trying hard to keep all traces of fondness out of his tone. "We'll find something, but maybe we'll drop by for a moment. Make sure you hurry up to get those sharks out of our house."

 

Stiles laughed and Derek's heart was definitely not beating faster at all because of that. Solely because he thought he'd heard the shark closest to him moving. "Feel free to climb by through the window, like good old times. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to take a nap, it was just a long day and I didn't really feel like trying another spell today since all the others already went wrong... But between Lydia and me, your house should be shark-free tomorrow this time at the very latest."

 

Derek didn't smile. He also didn't fondly roll his eyes. "I'd say thank you but I don't think that's really appropriate, since you were the one who put the sharks here in the first place."

 

Stiles huffed another laugh. "No need to be such a nitpicker."

 

They said their goodbyes and Derek was about to turn back to Cora and finally drag her out of this place – he should have done that before he called Stiles, really – when there was a sudden flash of movement too fast even for his wolf senses to react in time and a surge of agonizing pain and Cora was staring at _him_ with shocked, wide eyes now, pale as a sheet. Derek looked down at himself and there was a burning shark attached to his leg, jaws locked and eyes dying. Swallowing down the bile wanting to rise up his throat at the image, Derek crouched down once its smell told him the shark was definitely dead and tried to remove its teeth from his leg. Even with additional werewolf strength there was nothing he could do to break the shark's apparently also magically enhanced bones. At one point in his struggle, Cora unfroze and sank down to her knees next to him, trying her best as well, but the shark's jaw wouldn't budge.

 

Now he had a magically burning, dead shark attached to his leg by its teeth. At least it wasn't the one spitting rainbow sparks.

 

"We should probably get you to Deaton," said Cora, still fussing over his leg even though there wasn't anything she could do right now.

 

"Stiles," Derek grit out between his teeth as another wave of agony hit him when Cora accidentally jostled the head of the shark, shaking his head.

 

"Why?" Cora's eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline. Maybe Stiles wasn't so wrong whenever he made jokes about the most expressive thing on a Hale's face being the eyebrows. The very fact that he was thinking that was probably a sure sign he was already slightly delusional with pain.

 

"Because if Deaton knew how to fix this, do you think we'd have piles of burning sharks in our house?" Deaton might not always be the most helpful person to wander the planet but Derek was pretty sure he'd have put his foot down at this desacrilizing of the former Hale house if he'd had any say in it.

 

Cora gave a resigned sigh and pulled Derek up, pressing close to his shark-less side to support him as he hobbled forwards. Pain raced up his leg and he almost passed out before he'd even made a single step. Cora froze next to him, shaking her head. "We're not getting you anywhere like this. I have a better idea." With that, she nonchalantly leaned Derek against the closest wall and slipped around him, lifting the shark up. As ridiculous as it looked, with Cora holding the tail as if she were pushing a wheelbarrow instead of carrying a dead shark, it did take a lot of the pressure away from where its teeth were still buried deep in Derek's leg. If Cora timed her movements to his, they could actually make it to the front porch, and then she could get the car a little closer and they'd somehow actually manage to get to Stiles' house.

 

It was incredibly awkward and slow-going, but they did it. Once he was in the backseat of the car it was easier to arrange himself with the burning shark on his leg – and wow, there was a sentence he never thought he'd have to use – and the drive thankfully didn't take too long. Cora somehow managed to manoeuvre their car into the woods behind the Stilinski house and was out in a flash, telling Derek to wait in the car. She was back with Stiles at her side in a blink, though it was possible that his blinking time was a bit longer than usual due to the haze of pain he was in. But Stiles looked rather out of breath and his face was flushed red – he'd obviously done his best to keep up with Cora's werewolf speed, so it probably couldn't have been _that_ long.

 

"Great timing, Sourwolf," Stiles said, wheezing, a broad grin on his face as he shook the contents of the bowl he'd brought with him. "I think I just figured out how to solve the magical fire and probably even the whole shark problem. Actually, Lydia did a huge part of the figuring out since I'm still not an expert on archaic Latin, but the main thing is that we have a solution. We should be able to get rid of your shark problem if you get out of the car."

 

Cora helped him out but the second Derek was standing on solid ground, shark at his side, Stiles' eyes went comically wide and he pressed his lips together until they were nothing but a white line, hurriedly pressing the bowl into Cora's hands. Before they could ask him what was going on he'd literally thrown himself on the ground to roll around laughing.

 

"I'm sorry," he pressed out between surges of laughter. "I know you're in pain but- oh god- you should see yourself- shark!"

 

Derek shifted against the side of the car to get his weight off of the handicapped leg, crossing his arms in front of his chest and decidedly not pouting while Cora started snickering at his side.

 

"If you're done," he said in a deadpan once Stiles stayed on his back for more than a split-second.

 

"Yeah, sure, gimme a second," Stiles said breathlessly, throwing his arm over his head and absentmindedly patting the ankle of Derek's good leg before rolling onto all fours and awkwardly getting up from the ground. He took the bowl from a still chuckling Cora and took a generous handful of its contents out. He'd already dumped it on the shark before Derek could smell more than an overwhelming wave of lavender and rose petals and what might have been mothballs. There was a loud popping noise and for a few seconds, everything was covered in a light purple haze smelling even more powerfully. When the clouds of smoke finally cleared, the shark had disappeared and the wound on Derek's leg was almost done healing. On the downside, he was also smelling intensely like rose petals, lavender and mothballs and was covered in glitter for some reason. Stiles was back to rolling around on the floor, clutching his sides and sounding almost more in pain than amused. Now that Derek was freed of the shark, Cora apparently didn't feel the need to hold back anymore and joined Stiles on the floor.

 

"I hate you both," Derek grumbled, wiping a generous helping of glitter off his brow. "Why was there glitter in there, anyway?"

 

"I thought, if we're going to spend half a day basically exploding sharks with what smells like my grandma's wardrobe, why not add a little fun?" Stiles grinned up at him from where his head had come to rest close to Derek's feet. "And Cora dragged me out of the house so fast I couldn't exactly tell her that I needed to start on another, un-glitterfied bowl. Which is a good thing, because otherwise we'd have missed this truly hilarious picture." Derek growled at him and playfully poked him between the ribs with his foot. Stiles let out a shriek of laughter that ended up in a coughing fit caused by him accidentally breathing in the glitter still raining down from Derek's jacket and hair. Derek smirked down at him when he finally resurfaced from where he'd buried his face in his knees, shaking his head like a wet dog to rain down some more glitter.

 

"I'd accuse you of being evil but I guess I brought this on myself," Stiles chuckled, pushing a hand through his hair that came back covered in leaves, dirt and glitter. He just shrugged and wiped it on his pants. "Anyone up to making me help another helping of the stuff? The glitter's kind of a bitch to get out of everything, but a little confetti never hurt anyone, right?"

 

Derek rolled his eyes as Stiles stumbled to his feet, pulling up a still laughing Cora and immediately proceeding to text Scott, Isaac and Lydia to come over. He was about to disappear into the shadows of the forest to leave the kids to their fun and wash off the glitter and awful smell before anyone else got a chance of seeing him like that when a firm hand on his wrist stopped him.

 

"Oh no, no, no. You're coming with us, Sourwolf, no getting around it. I haven't seen you in weeks and I missed you and there was a fucking Sharknado tearing through town today and you're going to mix confetti shark-ridding salt with me."

 

Derek let one corner of his mouth twitch up into a real smile and let himself be dragged into the house, hoping that the way he moved his hand so that they're fingers were tangled with each other and the squeeze he gave Stiles' hand were enough to get his meaning across. _I missed you too_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
